Document history
This section lists major changes to the Amazon Step Functions Developer Guide.
Change | Description | Date changed | ||
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Documentation-only update |
Added a Note about unavailability of X-Ray tracing for the Distributed Map state. For more information, see Amazon X-Ray and Step Functions. |
March 21, 2023 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Added information about how Step Functions handles tag-based authorization. For more information, see Tagging in Step Functions and Tag-based Policies. |
March 15, 2023 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Added information about how Step Functions parses CSV files used as input in Distributed Map state. For more information, see CSV file in an Amazon S3 bucket. |
March 14, 2023 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Reduce the history retention period of your completed workflow executions from 90 days to 30 days. For more information about adjusting the retention period, see Execution guarantees and Quotas related to state machine executions. |
February 21, 2023 | ||
Update |
Step Functions has expanded support for Amazon SDK integrations by adding 35 Amazon services and 1100 new API actions. For more information, see Supported Amazon SDK service integrations and Summary of Amazon SDK integration updates. |
February 17, 2023 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Published a Getting Started tutorial series that walks you through the process of creating a workflow for credit card application using Step Functions. For more information, see Getting started with Amazon Step Functions. |
December 30, 2022 | ||
Update |
Step Functions now provides a new console experience for viewing and debugging Express workflow executions. For more information see: |
October 18, 2022 | ||
Update |
Added support to optionally specify the |
September 20, 2022 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Added a new topic that provides recommendations about optimizing cost while building serverless workflows using Step Functions. For more information, see Cost-optimization using Express Workflows. |
September 15, 2022 | ||
Update |
Step Functions adds support for 14 new intrinsic functions for performing data processing tasks, such as array manipulations, data encoding and decoding, hash calculations, JSON data manipulation, math function operations, and unique identifier generation. Documentation-only update:Grouped all the existing and newly introduced intrinsic functions into the following categories based on the type of data processing task they help you perform: For more information, see Intrinsic functions. |
August 31, 2022 |
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Update |
Step Functions has expanded support for Amazon SDK integrations by adding three more Amazon services–Amazon Billing Conductor, Amazpn GameSparks, and Amazon Pinpoint SMS and Voice V2. For more information, see Change log for supported Amazon SDK integrations. |
July 26, 2022 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Added a new topic to include a summary of all the updates made to Amazon SDK integrations supported by Step Functions. For more information, see Summary of Amazon SDK integration updates |
July 26, 2022 | ||
Documentation-only update |
Amazon Step Functions Developer Guide now includes details about the execution metrics that are emitted specifically for Express Workflows. For more information, see Execution Metrics for Express Workflows. |
June 09, 2022 | ||
Update |
Step Functions console enhancementsThe console now features a redesigned Execution Details page that includes the following enhancements:
Documentation-only updatesAdded a new topic to explain the various types of information displayed in the Execution Details page. Also, added a tutorial to show how to examine this information. For more information, see: |
May 09, 2022 | ||
Update |
Step Functions now provides a workaround to prevent the confused deputy security issue, which arises when an entity (a service or an account) is coerced by a different entity to perform an action. For more information, see: |
May 02, 2022 |
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Update |
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April 19, 2022 |
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New feature |
Step Functions Local now supports Amazon SDK integration and mocking of service integrations. For more information, see: |
January 28, 2022 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now supports creating an Amazon API Gateway REST API with synchronous express state machine as backend integration using the Amazon Cloud Development Kit (Amazon CDK). For more information, see: |
December 10, 2021 |
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Update |
Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate the integration of Step Functions and Amazon Athena's upgraded console. For more information, see: |
November 22, 2021 |
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New feature |
Step Functions has added Amazon VPC endpoints support for Synchronous Express Workflows. For more information, see: |
November 15, 2021 |
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Update |
Amazon Step Functions has added three new sample projects that demonstrate how to use the Step Functions Amazon Batch integration. For more information, see: |
October 14, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions has added Amazon SDK integrations, letting you use the API actions for all of the more than two hundred Amazon services. For more information, see: |
September 30, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions has added a visual workflow designer, the Amazon Step Functions Workflow Studio. For more information, see: |
June 17, 2021 |
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Update |
Amazon Step Functions has added four new APIs, |
June 4, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EventBridge. For more information, see:
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May 14, 2021 |
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Update |
Amazon Step Functions has added a new sample project that shows how to use Step Functions and the Amazon Redshift Data API to run an ETL/ELT workflow. For more information, see: |
April 16, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions has a new data flow simulator in the console. For more information, see: |
April 8, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR on EKS. For more information, see: |
March 29, 2021 |
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Update |
YAML support for state machine definitions has been added to Amazon Toolkit for Visual Studio Code and Amazon CloudFormation. For more information, see: |
March 4, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Glue DataBrew. For more information, see:
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January 6, 2021 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions Synchronous Express Workflows are now available, giving you an easy way to orchestrate microservices. For more information, see:
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November 24, 2020 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon API Gateway. For more information, see:
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November 17, 2020 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service. For more information, see:
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November 16, 2020 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon Athena. For more information, see:
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October 22, 2020 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now supports tracing end-to-end workflows with Amazon X-Ray, giving you full visibility across state machine executions and making it easier to analyze and debug your distributed applications. For more information, see:
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September 14, 2020 |
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Update | Amazon Step Functions now supports payload sizes up to 262,144 bytes of data as a UTF-8 encoded string. This lets you process larger payloads in both Standard and Express workflows. Your existing state machines do not need to be changed in order to use the larger payloads. However, you will need to update to the latest versions of the Step Functions SDK and Local Runner to use the updated APIs. For more information, see: |
September 3, 2020 | ||
Update |
The Amazon States Language has been updated as follows:
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August 13, 2020 |
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Update | Amazon Step Functions now supports the Amazon SageMaker
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August 4, 2020 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now supported by Amazon Serverless Application Model, making it easier to integrate workflow orchestration into your serverless applications. For more information, see: |
May 27, 2020 |
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New feature | Amazon Step Functions has introduced a new synchronous
invocation for nesting Step Functions executions. The new invocation,
arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync:2 , returns a
JSON object. The original invocation,
arn:aws:states:::states:startExecution.sync , continues to
be supported, and returns a JSON-escaped string. For more information, see:
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May 19, 2020 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon CodeBuild. For more information, see: |
May 5, 2020 |
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New feature | Step Functions is now supported in Amazon Toolkit for Visual Studio Code, making it easier to create and visualize state machine based workflows without leaving your code editor. |
March 31, 2020 | ||
Update |
You can now configure logging to Amazon CloudWatch Logs for Standard workflows. For more information, see: |
February 25, 2020 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions can now be accessed without requiring a public IP address, directly from Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). For more information, see: |
December 23, 2019 |
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New feature |
Express Workflows are a new workflow type, suitable for high-volume event processing workloads such as IoT data ingestion, streaming data processing and transformation, and mobile application backends. For more information, review the following new and updated topics. |
December 3, 2019 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions now integrates with Amazon EMR. For more information, see: |
November 19, 2019 |
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Update |
Amazon Step Functions has released the Amazon Step Functions Data Science SDK. For more information, see the following.
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November 7, 2019 |
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Update |
Step Functions now supports more API actions for Amazon SageMaker, and includes two new sample projects to demonstrate the functionality. For more information, see the following. |
October 3, 2019 |
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New feature | Step Functions supports starting new workflow
executions by calling |
August 12, 2019 | ||
New feature | Step Functions includes the ability to pass a
task token to integrated services, and pause the execution until that
task token is returned with Step Functions now provides a way to access dynamic information about your
current execution directly in the |
May 23, 2019 | ||
New feature | Step Functions supports CloudWatch Events for execution status changes, see: |
May 8, 2019 | ||
New feature | Step Functions supports IAM permissions using tags. For more information, see: |
March 5, 2019 | ||
New feature | Step Functions Local is now available. You can run Step Functions on your local machine for testing and development. Step Functions Local is available for download as either a Java application, or as a Docker image. See Testing Step Functions State Machines Locally. |
February 4, 2019 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available in the Beijing and Ningxia regions. See Supported regions. |
January 15, 2018 | ||
New feature | Step Functions supports resource tagging to help track your cost allocation. You can tag state machines on the Details page, or through API actions. See Tagging in Step Functions. |
January 7, 2019 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available in the Europe (Paris), and South America (São Paulo) regions. See Supported regions. |
December 13, 2018 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available the Europe (Stockholm) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
December 12, 2018 | ||
New feature |
You can now easily configure and generate a state definition for integrated services when editing your state definition. For more information, see: |
December 10, 2018 |
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New feature |
Step Functions now integrates with some Amazon services. You can now directly call and pass parameters to the API of these integrated services from a task state in the Amazon States Language. For more information, see: |
November 29, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved the description of |
October 24, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved the description for the Maximum execution history size limit and provided a link to the related best practices topic. |
October 17, 2018 |
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Update |
Added a new tutorial to the Amazon Step Functions documentation: See Starting a State Machine Execution in Response to Amazon S3 Events. |
September 25, 2018 |
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Update |
Removed the entry Maximum executions displayed in Step Functions console from the limits documentation. See Quotas. |
September 13, 2018 |
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Update |
Added a best practices topic to the Amazon Step Functions documentation on improving latency when polling for activity tasks. See Avoid latency when polling for activity tasks. |
August 30, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved the Amazon Step Functions topic on activities and activity workers. See Activities. |
August 29, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved the Amazon Step Functions topic on CloudTrail integration. See Logging Step Functions Using Amazon CloudTrail. |
August 7, 2018 |
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Update |
Added JSON examples to Amazon CloudFormation tutorial. See Creating a Lambda state machine for Step Functions using Amazon CloudFormation. |
June 23, 2018 |
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Update |
Added a new topic on handling Lambda service errors. See Handle Lambda service exceptions. |
June 20, 2018 |
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New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
June 28, 2018 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available the Amazon GovCloud (US-West) region. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. For information about using Step Functions in the Amazon GovCloud (US-West) Region, see Amazon GovCloud (US). |
June 28, 2018 | ||
Update |
Improved documentation on error handling for |
June 20, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved documentation about Input and Output processing in Step Functions.
Learn how to use |
June 7, 2018 |
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Update |
Improved code examples for parallel states. See Parallel. |
June 4, 2018 |
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New feature |
You can now monitor API and Service metrics in CloudWatch. See Monitoring Step Functions Using CloudWatch. |
May 25, 2018 |
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Update |
StartExecution , StopExecution , and
StateTransition now have increased throttling limits in the
following regions:
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May 16, 2018 | ||
New feature |
Amazon Step Functions is now available the US West (N. California) and Asia Pacific (Seoul) regions. See Supported regions for a list of supported regions. |
May 5, 2018 | ||
Update |
Updated procedures and images to match changes to the interface. |
April 25, 2018 | ||
Update |
Added a new tutorial that shows how to start a new execution to continue your work. See Continuing Long-running Workflow Executions as a New Execution. This tutorial describes a design pattern that can help avoid some service limitations. See Avoid reaching the history quota. |
April 19, 2018 | ||
Update |
Improved introduction to states documentation by adding conceptual information about state machines. See States. |
March 9, 2018 | ||
Update | In addition to HTML, PDF, and Kindle, the
Amazon Step Functions Developer Guide is available on GitHub. To leave feedback, choose the GitHub
icon in the upper right-hand corner.
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March 2, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a topic describing other resources
relating to Step Functions. See Related information. |
February 20, 2018 | ||
New feature |
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February 19, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a topic that describes an example activity worker written in Ruby. This implementation can be used to create a Ruby activity worker directly, or as a design pattern for creating an activity worker in another language. | February 6, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a new tutorial describing a design
pattern that uses a Lambda function to iterate a count. See Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda. |
January 31, 2018 | ||
Update | Updated content on IAM permissions to
include DescribeStateMachineForExecution and
UpdateStateMachine APIs. |
January 26, 2018 | ||
Update | Added newly available regions:
Canada (Central), Asia Pacific (Singapore). See Supported regions. |
January 25, 2018 | ||
Update | Updated tutorials and procedures to reflect that IAM allows you to select Step Functions as a role. | January 24, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a new Best Practices topic that suggests not passing large payloads between states. | January 23, 2018 | ||
Update | Corrected procedures to match updated interface for creating a state machine: | January 17, 2018 | ||
New Feature | You can use Sample
Projects to quickly provision state machines and all related
Amazon resources. See Sample projects for Step Functions, Available sample projects include: These sample projects and related documentation replace tutorials that described implementing the same functionality. |
January 11, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a Best Practices section that includes information on avoiding stuck executions. See Best practices for Step Functions. | January 5, 2018 | ||
Update | Added a note on how retries can affect
pricing: Retries are treated as state transitions. For information about how state transitions affect
billing, see Step Functions Pricing |
December 8, 2017 | ||
Update | Added information related to resource names:
Step Functions allows you to create state machine, execution, and activity names that contain non-ASCII characters. These non-ASCII names don't work with Amazon CloudWatch. To ensure that you can track CloudWatch metrics, choose a name that uses only ASCII characters. |
December 6, 2017 | ||
Update | Improved security overview information and added a topic on granular IAM permissions. See Security in Amazon Step Functions and Creating Granular IAM Permissions for Non-Admin Users. | November 27, 2017 | ||
New Feature |
You can update an existing state machine. See Update your state machine. |
November 15, 2017 | ||
Update |
Added a note to clarify Unhandled errors in Lambda are reported as |
October 17, 2017 | ||
Update |
Corrected and clarified IAM instructions and updated the screenshots in all tutorials. |
October 11, 2017 | ||
Update |
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October 6, 2017 | ||
Update |
Rewrote the IAM instructions in the following sections to reflect changes in the IAM console:
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October 5, 2017 | ||
Update |
Rewrote the State Machine Data section. |
September 28, 2017 | ||
New feature |
The limits related to API action throttling are increased for all regions where Step Functions is available. |
September 18, 2017 |
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Update |
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September 14, 2017 |
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Update |
Rewrote the following tutorials to reflect changes in the Lambda console:
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August 28, 2017 |
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New feature |
Step Functions is available in Europe (London). |
August 23, 2017 |
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New feature |
The visual workflows of state machines let you zoom in, zoom out, and center the graph. |
August 21, 2017 |
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New feature |
An execution can't use the name of another execution for 90 days. When you make multiple |
August 18, 2017 | ||
Input Type | Execution State | |||
Open | Closed | |||
Identical | Success |
ExecutionAlreadyExists |
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Different | ExecutionAlreadyExists |
ExecutionAlreadyExists |
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For more information, see the |
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Update |
Added information about an alternative way of passing the state machine ARN to the Creating a Step Functions API Using API Gateway tutorial. |
August 17, 2017 |
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Update | Added the new Creating a Job Status Poller tutorial. |
August 10, 2017 |
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New feature |
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August 3, 2017 | ||
Update |
Updated the instructions in the Step 1: Create an IAM Role for API Gateway section. |
July 18, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Choice section. |
June 23, 2017 | ||
Update |
Added information about using resources under other Amazon accounts to the following tutorials: |
June 22, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the following sections: |
June 21, 2017 |
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Update |
Rewrote all tutorials to match the Step Functions console refresh. |
June 12, 2017 | ||
New feature |
Step Functions is available in Asia Pacific (Sydney). |
June 8, 2017 |
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Update |
Restructured the Amazon States Language section. |
June 7, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Creating an Activity State Machine Using Step Functions section. |
June 6, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected the code examples in the Examples using Retry and using Catch section. |
June 5, 2017 |
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Update |
Restructured this guide using Amazon documentation standards. |
May 31, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Parallel section. |
May 25, 2017 |
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Update |
Merged the Paths and Filters sections into the Input and Output Processing in Step Functions section. |
May 24, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the Monitoring Step Functions Using CloudWatch section. |
May 15, 2017 |
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Update |
Updated the |
May 9, 2017 |
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Update |
Added an introductory video to the What is Amazon Step Functions? section. |
April 19, 2017 |
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Update |
Corrected and clarified information in the following tutorials: |
April 19, 2017 |
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Update |
Added information about Lambda templates to the Creating a Step Functions state machine that uses Lambda and Handling error conditions using a Step Functions state machine tutorials. |
April 6, 2017 |
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Update |
Changed the "Maximum input or result data size" limit to "Maximum input or result data size for a task, state, or execution" (32,768 characters). For more information, see Quotas related to task executions. |
March 31, 2017 |
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New feature |
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March 21, 2017 |
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New feature |
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March 16, 2017 |
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New feature |
Step Functions is available in Europe (Frankfurt). |
March 7, 2017 |
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Update |
Reorganized the topics in the table of contents and updated the following tutorials: |
February 23, 2017 |
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New feature |
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February 23, 2017 |
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New feature |
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February 14, 2017 |
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New feature |
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February 10, 2017 |
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Update |
Clarified the current behavior of the |
February 6, 2017 |
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Update |
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January 5, 2017 |
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Update |
Updated Lambda function examples to use the latest programming model. |
December 9, 2016 |
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New feature |
The initial release of Step Functions. |
December 1, 2016 |